Cannibalistic Recruiting Tactics Can Bite Back Big Time!

I have been hearing so many negative rumors about brokerages/offices, closings and bankruptcy, my head is spinning. I know this is happening because I see it but I will not believe any such "rumors" until the Broker/Owner tells me directly, I read it in the newspaper or the closed sign is hanging on the front door.

Before I really get into this, I would like to say that I am all for the competition of recruiting and being very shrewd in how it gets done. It is a game to me and I like to win. I just don't feel like recruiting from a perceived negative is the way to do this business.

There are many agents, managers and owners in a frenzy right now to grab the rumor of a failing brokerage and use it as a recruiting strategy. I don't think this is in your best interest. It is preying on your peer's perceived vulnerabilities. Yes, I said "peer." You do have a common bond and you need it more now than ever. I know for a fact that many, many, many rumors were started about our brokerage and relayed through competing agent talk and even took up valuable training time in my competition's sales meetings. I always knew when someone had set the trap. The flurry of calls to my agents would run rampant. I'm thankful that I had a great group of agents who wouldn't believe anything unless it came from their leadership.

These rumors would start for a variety of reasons:

We decided to pull advertising from the newspaper to develop a full-service marketing department and my competition said we were going out of business. Hardly, it was the best move we ever made.

An agent was not meeting our minimum standard and wanted to have a guilt-free exodus and used negative talk to convince themselves and others that there were problems in our brokerage.

We closed an office to move it to a better location and downsized the space because so many of our agents had resources at home that they didn't need 8,000 sq.ft. to have potlucks in....and the list goes on.

Recruiting to rumor and causing more fear and anxiety in a brokerage can backfire in a huge way.